Harmless Soul

SR No.: 001196
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: W J Johnson, Dayanand Bhargav
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas
Publication Year: 1995
Total Pages: 372
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Philosophy, & Principle
File Size: 20 MB

Page 314

300 Harmless Souls
non-concentration, non-abstinence from attachment to external objects, non-self-censure, non-confession of faults, nonpurification - this is the pot of nectar. (307)
Clearly this eightfold list (306) constitutes a description of the conduct expected of the good ascetic. Although in this form it does not correspond exactly to any formula that I can discover, each of its elements must have been part of monastic practice from an early date. 40
What then can be meant by, for instance, describing the practice of pratisarana (glossed by Jayasena as 'the turning towards qualities such as 'right belief)41 as 'the pot of poison' and its non-performance as 'the pot of nectar'?
The modern commentator, J.L. Jaini,42 explains that, although all eight practices are commendable for ascetics,
for one who is bent solely on the realisation of the self, they are hindrances, and therefore like poison, because they produce bondage of good karmas which keep the soul in Samsara, and stand in the way of its self-realisation.43
He then goes on to state that the practice of self-absorption
40 In my translation of this list I have followed Jayasena's Tātparyavrttiḥ on JGM 334-335. On pratikramana as 'ritualized confession', see JPP p. 349; see also Schubring para. 159. According to the TS (9:22) pratikramana comes under prāyaścitta (repentance), which itself is one of the subdivisions of internal tapas. Kundakunda's Niyamasāra states that meditation (jhāna / dhyāna) on the self constitutes the repentance of all transgressions (pratikramana). See also Niyamasāra 83-91. On parihära, see Schubring para. 161, and TS 9:22, where it occurs in the technical sense of expulsion from the order; cf. Bhargava pp. 185, 189-190. On dhāraņā, see Schubring para. 72; it is also given at TS 1:15 as one of the four divisions of sensory knowledge. On nindā, see Schubring para. 160. On pratikramana, ninda and garhā, see Bhargava p.169.
. 41 samyaktvādiguneșu preranam - Tātparyavrtti on Samayasāra 306 (= JGM 334].
42 On Samayasāra 306 (= JGM 334, and 327 in Jaini's SBJ ed.) 43 p. 174, SBJ ed.